Matters of Perspective
by thewiseferret
Summary: The first thing he heard was laughter. -Contains lack of logic, continued abuse of sports cars, kidnap, and the Joker on drugs. Because sanity is a matter of perspective-
1. Chapter 1

The first thing he heard was laughter. Quick and sharp.

_Oh God-_

Gordon woke with a jerk that made metal ring loudly against metal as the cuffs pulled taut.

_No- No I'm dreaming, he's dead. He's dead-_

Jim Gordon struggled into a sitting position. He tried to force his eyes to focus faster, as if he could rid his body of the drugs by willpower alone. There were spot lights on him, he couldn't see past the glare-

But anyone who'd lived through this before could sense that grin like the smell of cyanide.

_Oh God-_

"Ev-ening, Kuh-mmishon-er."

"Oh God," Gordon gasped. "You're-you were dead. He killed you-"

A giggling fit, high and hysterical cut him off.

_Moving.....to the left?-_

And just like that it all came crashing back, all the dead bodies, all the gas attacks, all the burnt out husks of buildings-

_Calm down....Just- Just breathe-_

"I thought Batman killed you."

"Oh?" He chuckled.

_And right again-_

"Is _that_ what he told you hmmmmmm?"

"You-YOU_ GODDAMN SON OF A BITCH_!"

The Joker tsked as the cuffs pulled taut again and Gordon scrambled as far forward as he could, his free hand clawing at the voice beyond the glare.

"Finished?"

"Where the hell am I?!" Gordon demanded.

He didn't get a reply.

After a while he thought he might have been left alone. He tried to stare through the lights, to make out the room beyond. The only things he could have sworn to were 'large' and 'dark'. His jacket was missing, and his wallet, and his GCPD badge.

_The handcuffs-_

The handcuffs were a pair of those old ratchet types the cops used in the 90s. Two adjustable metal cuffs separated by two and a half inches of steel chain, harder to escape from then the Darbys they used in the 50s, but with a lot more slack then the stiff modern Hiatts. They also had a universal key......

He twisted to examine the pipe and found it was far too sturdy for his liking. He started patting down his pockets, hoping a little frantically that he'd put his keys in his trousers-

He almost missed seeing the Joker step into his little half circle of light.

For a moment Gordon didn't recognise him; he wasn't wearing that _godawful_ purple suit, he'd lost a lot of weight- And it was easy to forget how pale he was, to let your mind edge him slowly further to something _mortal_ in his absence. But there he was, pale as death, his thinning hair the same colour and texture as dead grass and those thin bloody lips pulled back into that smile.

He wandered closer, crouching down to Gordon's level just out of reach. There was blood spattered on his jeans and wiped on the bottom of his shirt.

"Where is he kuh-mmishon-er?"

"Who?"

The corners of his lips edged upwards. "Batsy of course."

"Why should I-"

The Joker cut him off with a gesture and a grin. He raised his hand, waving it an inch from Gordon's face.

"Let me.....spell this out for you Jimbo. You're still alive right now because of these-"

His fingers curled and uncurled, making three flat white pills appear, one deftly held between each digit. The grin cracked, leaving Gordon face to face with a mouthful of chipped yellow teeth and a lungful of air that smelt of rotten tobacco.

"In six hours my supply runs out sooooooo.......I suh-pose you're on a timer......."

He was back on his feet and half way back behind the lights before Gordon could concoct a response.

"What makes you think I'll tell you where he is? What makes you think I even know?"

The Joker shrugged. "Maybe I don't.......maaaaybe I just want to have some _fun_- That sounds just like me..........doesn't it.......kuh-mmishon-eerrrrrrr?"

000

_If it had been anyone else you could have described the pause as 'thoughtful'. Then the Joker had laughed._

"_Congraaaatu-lay-shons Batsy, you've managed to come up with a plan even _**I**_ think is crazy."_

_Which sounded very much like a resounding 'no', and the police were closing in, they would catch up any minute and the authorities had already blocked up the tunnel under Arkham-_

"_What the hell....." He'd whispered._

_He followed it up with a grin and flung his arms wide, even though he was very probably sporting a cracked radius and a dislocated shoulder. Judging from the way he'd hobbled backwards and tripped it couldn't have been good for his balance either._

"_I'm aaaaaaaaaall _yours_ Bats, darling."_

_Which had been close enough to agreement for Bruce._

000

It could have been ten minutes, it could have been seventy.

He turned the spot lights off and Gordon found himself blinking into a gigantic cave, lit by a vast collection of computer monitors and television screens a dozen or so metres in front of him. The Joker scowled at him.

"Weeeeeell?"

_This is completely insa-_

"You're the detective......." The Joker whined, gesturing vaguely towards the monitors. "Detect-"

Gordon stared. Splotches of green after-image were still blocking most of what he could see, his eyes hadn't had time to adjust and this was _crazy_ and the Joker was supposed to be dead and how the hell were his men supposed to find him when he was busy having a 'conversation' with a dead man?

He wasn't nearly quick enough for his captor's tastes.

The Joker sighed melodramatically. "Do I h_ave_ to do eeeeevvverything my_self_?"

The blow caught Gordon just below the ear. The after-images changed to stars-

_Well,_ Gordon reflected when his ears stopped ringing and the pain faded down from mind-blanking-fog to a dull ache, _he hasn't slowed down. If only my patrol-men could get cuffs open and on so fast-_

He was yanked to his feet so roughly it sent him spinning. He aimed a clumsy kick in the direction of the cackling.

_Missed-_

The Joker slammed him into the wall. He didn't quite black out, but the world became worryingly frayed around the edges for a moment. By the time it was clear again the Joker had dragged him to up to the computer bank. He was pushed into a chair.

Gordon glanced at the monitors; two of them were playing news channels, GCN and the Times, a huge swathe of them appeared to be linked to surveillance equipment, watching individuals, most of whom were in cells and the rest...... The rest had blue-screened rather spectacularly. One of the central monitors was blinking erratically and occasionally demanding a password.

_Great-_

He turned his head a fraction, the Joker was a few feet away leaning against the computer bank and polishing his finger nails on the lapel of a non-existent jacket.

_Just great-_

"About oooooo five hours left kuh-mmish....... Better find him faaaast."

_When,_ Gordon wondered, _did all this become part of the job description?_

000

_If you hung around him long enough you learnt to tell the difference between the laughs, learnt to tell what they meant. _

_Assuming of course that you lived that long._

_He laughed when he was angry, which was most of the time. When he was frustrated, which was common enough. When he was scared, which was rarely. When he was genuinely happy, which was even stranger. When someone else was in pain. When he'd had a good idea, or a bad one depending on your point of view. And of course when he knew something you didn't, which was perhaps the most frightening one of all. _

_And of course if you looked too deeply into any of it you'd start going crazy yourself._

000

Trying to get sense out of the Joker was like trying to pull out your own teeth with greased ladles. Gordon was smart enough not to try.

Since Gordon's plans didn't extend in any great detail past getting away from the grinning maniac to his left and living long enough to see the next day he had tried to get the computer working. It had bleeped mournfully, flashed blue and repeated its demands for a password. Gordon, being a man of a certain generation, had no real idea how coax the wretched thing to life. So he gave up, pressed random buttons and concentrated on trying to find an escape route.

The Joker hummed and muttered and giggled. His laughter was becoming worryingly frequent as though he was reaching some sort of internal crescendo.

When lights flared up behind him Gordon jumped, half-sure he'd been blown to hell before-

He turned.

_Jesus H Christ!_

A few metres away, lit by ground-lights and flood-lights, was a car.

It was sleek, streamlined and black, he'd seen it dozens of times, streaking through the streets and hundreds more as a blur on the news reel.

Gordon gaped. The Joker cackled.

000

_He had started with the case file from Arkham. It was twice as thick as the Bible and as helpful as an essay on lima beans. _

_Everyone who'd ever examined him had a different theory and he went through doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and specialists faster than Bruce Wayne's play-boy persona went through women. _

_They generally agreed on some form of psychosis and mania. _

_They blamed everything they could dream up. _

_In the end Bruce took out the medical records, noted the drugs that they'd tried unsuccessfully and left the rest to rot._

000

It had taken a while for the facts to surface, mostly because the majority of them had to be coaxed from the Joker.

The facts as far as Gordon could assemble them were that the Joker (previously presumed dead) had kidnapped him because Batman was missing. The connection had eluded the Commissioner initially, but then kidnapping high ranking state officials had always somehow summoned the Batman in the past and one could not expect the Joker to be logical. They were both now in Batman's- base where the Dark Knight had still failed to appear.

The big questions: why the Joker had been lying low for so long and how he knew where Batman's base of operations was for starters, were apparently things the Joker was not inclined to answer.

The figures on the security cameras, now that he scrutinised them, turned out to be Two-Face, The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, The Penguin, the usual suspects. All in their cells. There hadn't been any break-outs from Arkham for a month or more, it had been a _quiet_ night as far as Gordon could remember-

The car was sitting idle in the drive-way.

_Next of kin-_

Gordon sighed. "Does he have another car?"

The Joker stared at him for longer than Gordon was comfortable with. Then his face cracked into a grin again and he was laughing. Which was bad enough but the next minute he had left his spot by the wall and was beside the Commissioner, an arm draped lazily over his shoulder and long pale fingers like an infection in his hair.

Jim Gordon, who has been Police Commissioner in Gotham, of all places, for far longer than is strictly sane, who has served in wars and walked more murder scenes then most people have had hot meals, winced.

The Joker muttered something. He giggled. He fiddled with something on the gigantic computer. A map of Gotham flared on one of the screens for a moment, but Gordon didn't really see it.

It was hard to take your eyes away from that grin.

The Joker chuckled. "Sooooooo, Jimbo, fancy coming for a _spin?_"

The chair careened backwards, something hit the back of his head again.....

And Gordon blacked out.

000

_The first thing he tried was the antidote to Joker venom. _

_It was a disaster. _

_He should have stopped earlier, but he kept telling himself it took time for any drug to have an effect. And hadn't learnt to recognise the laughter yet, hadn't learnt that _**that**_ one was pain-_

_He'd expected the Joker to start refusing treatment after the first few days anyway, so he hadn't bothered to look into reasoning-_

_They'd administered most of his treatments forcefully at Arkham anyway. _

_And he'd expected the Joker to fake injuries, because his file recorded almost two hundred separate incidents, ranging from broken bones to kidney failure some of which had allowed him to escape-_

_So he'd ignored the fainting fits. They never lasted long, and the Joker always laughed when he got up, which had confirmed Bruce's belief that the Joker was........showing off......_

_He'd cracked suddenly, with no warning. All at once._

_The laughter stopped. The jokes, the puns, the word-play, had all vanished. That manic energy had drained away, leaving a husk curled in a corner. _

_He'd stopped eating-_

_And eventually Bruce had gone in to check......_

_He'd taken him off the anti-venom and had Alfred put him on a drip._

_He'd stayed in a coma for three days._

_He stayed silent for two more._

_Then he'd sighed._

"_Batsy, that __**reeeeally**__ wasn't funny."_

000

Gordon woke up in the dark.

He tried to sit up and hit his head.

He realised he was in a car boot when the Joker decided to take a twenty mile an hour corner at sixty on two wheels and he crashed into a corner feet first.

He tugged at the hand cuffs, patted down his pockets properly just in case he had a spare key the Joker had missed. He didn't.

He tried to find the boot's release catch. There should have been one, but they'd only started installing them in new models five years ago, and not all the companies agreed on safety standards-

And of course an inventive crook could remove it.

The Joker rounded another corner at high speed and Gordon cursed his luck.

000

_Bruce had gone back to basics, to science-_

_The Joker had become insane after a dip in that vat of chemicals at the Ace Processing Plant, assuming a chemical imbalance was as good a place to start as any. _

_And he doubted anyone else would have been able to persuade the Joker, conscious and sober, into an NMR machine-_

_He'd posed as a Gotham psychiatrist at Arkham, sent the scans out to Metropolis to a specialist._

_The phone call had come a week later-_

"_-very interesting." The specialist had said. "What was it?"_

"_I'm sorry?"_

"_What were you giving the patient, and how much? Because the effects are extremely potent-"_

"_Nothing."_

"_Oh come on." The Metropolite had wheedled. "Everyone knows what goes on at Arkham. Strictly off the record, what was it? Amanita? Scopolamine? Ibogaine? I mean it couldn't be anything widely used for recreation because the inspectors would pick it up in tests, so LSD's out of the question but-"_

"_Nothing." Bruce stated, perhaps a little harshly. "No one gave the patient anything."_

_There was a long thoughtful pause._

"_Which of them was it?" The specialist asked, in a tone close to awe._

_Bruce hung up._

_He looked the terms up later. They were three separate species of hallucinogenic flora, a mushroom and two plants, the medicinal use of which was outlawed in the United States. _

_Everyone knows what goes on at Arkham-_

_He'd started investigating the next day._

000

They'd stopped. He'd heard that hysterical giggling briefly.

Then it had stopped.

He heard loud, sharp, bangs and tried not to imagine the Joker with guns. He heard screams, yells-

Gordon concentrated on trying to get out of the boot. He shifted so that his back was jammed against the body of the car and kicked at the boot and what he hoped was the lock. If it didn't give then may be someone would hear it, someone would call the police-

He tried not to think that he was probably still in Gotham, where people did not generally call the police when they thought someone was trapped in a car boot, but crossed the street to avoid it instead. He tried not to think about what might happen if it was the Joker who heard and came back-

He had quite a long list of things not to think about.

_Smilex would be at the top-_

By the time he stopped kicking he was sweating and out of breath. The stuffy, trapped air only made it seem so much hotter.

Gordon slouched against the collection of dents he'd made in his metal box.

He heard voices. He heard laughter.

_He's going to kill me_, Gordon thought briefly, until it occurred to him that he recognised the second voice.

It was deep, gravelly, words rasped so that the voice couldn't be identified-

_Batman_.

"**What**?" The voice began. "**How** did you-"

It trailed off with a long suffering sigh.

"**Why** did you bring the **maserati**?"

Somewhere nearby, the Joker started to laugh.

000

_The first real improvement came after they worked out how to get him to sleep. Properly sleep instead of knocking him out, drugging him or waiting until he collapsed from exhaustion. _

_Alfred had noticed it initially, as a steady drop in the amount of miscellaneous damage, but then he'd attacked Batman again-_

_Bruce had been restrained. He only broke one of his legs._

_When he'd woken up in the Batcave he'd started laughing and Bruce had been prepared to resign these drugs as another failed experiment-_

"_They're reeeeeeeal!"_

"_What?" Batman had growled._

"_The __**baaaaats**__." The Joker had replied as though it was all perfectly obvious. "They're- heh heh, __**act-ually**__ reeeeeeal!"_

_He threw back his head and laughed as though reality was the best joke in the world._

000

"You have no concept of subtlety do you?"

"It's _your_ car daaaaar-ling." The Joker drawled.

"And it was in one piece when I left it-"

"It's _still_ in one piece!"

"The wing mirrors are missing-"

"Aawwwwwwww **I** gettit........poooooor widdly Batsy, are you feeeeling all- uh- _emasculated?_"

"_What?_"

"You knoooooow......being the- uh _damsel_ in deeeee-_stress-_"

"Joker?"

"Yes honey-cakes?"

"Shut up."

"But _Batsy-_"

"_How_ did you manage to _burn_ that door?"

"Heh heh, you know that's a _funny_ story-"

"And _why_ are the dents in the trunk angled _outwards_?"

There was a pause.

"Who's in there?"

"Santa Claus." The Joker suggested. "No? Kennedy-"

"_**Jackie-**_"

"Gordon then."

From inside the trunk Gordon heard a thump then Batman sighed.

"I'm sorry about this Commissioner."

The boot was forced open with a clank. For a long time he was blinking away the light-

When the after images faded and the world finally focused Gordon found himself looking up not at the mask he'd been expecting but the scowling face of Bruce Wayne-

Leaning against the burnt door, hand over a split lip, the Joker was laughing.

-000-


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce Wayne- Batman- helped him out of the trunk of his battered Maserati, while the Joker who was still cackling, slid to the ground. Bruce unlocked the cuffs, pocketed them-

_This is impossible-_

-hoisted the Joker to his feet, bundled him in the back of the car-

_Wayne- Wayne can't be Batman, the voice- it's.......anyone could copy that voice, it's just a voice. Wayne can't be Batman-_

Gordon took a deep breath and tried to focus through shock, head trauma, and prolonged exposure to the Joker. Wayne, who might or might not also be Batman, was trying to convince the goddamned maniac to stay put.

_He is- You suspected him, when Batman first showed up, but you didn't look into it. You didn't look into it because you were busy, trying to keep Barbara, trying to get the charges to stick to Flass, trying to keep the entire city from spiralling out of control. Sarah suspected him, Sarah told you-_

"Gordon-"

"You want me to get in the car." Gordon guessed. "You want to keep him out of sight and you want to get _that_ off the road-"

"Jim," Wayne began.

"Can you keep _him_ under control?"

"Everything except his mouth."

Gordon sighed.

"Jim-"

"You've got a lot of explaining to do Mr Wayne."

In the back the Joker burst into another fit of hysterics, as Gordon climbed into the passenger seat. Wayne sank into the driver's seat.

"What have you **done** with the keys?"

"_Bat_sy......I thought you'd-uh _for-gotten_ me-"

"You have five seconds to give me the keys-"

"_But _I thought you _didn't waaaaant_ the caaaar-"

"Then I'm breaking your legs-"

"But _Batsy-_"

"Four-"

The Joker pouted. He draped a hand over Wayne's shoulder; the keys appeared with a jangle. Bruce reached for them. The Joker jerked them away.

"**Three**-"

"Sure you haven't- ummm _for-gotten_ anything daaaaaaaaaaaar-_ling_?"

Bruce made an exasperated noise and snatched the keys.

Wayne was fast, fast enough to dig out a rattling plastic container and throw it into the back before the Joker began to fully verbalise his complaints. Gordon was ridiculously grateful.

The Joker spilled pills over his hand, the seats and the floor indiscriminatingly, then proceeded to down at least six dry.

"Don't overdose in the back of my goddamn car." Wayne growled, starting the engine.

"But _Baaaaats_ _baaaaay-_be....."

"**Shut Up.**"

The Joker, with incredible, borderline _heroic_, self-control, was silent for roughly eleven seconds.

"Can I _drive_?"

Gordon put his head in his hands.

000

_Bruce had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to keep him away from Wayne Manor. The less the Joker knew about him, the safer his family was. Whatever improvements the drugs had caused he was still the Joker, he was still unpredictable, still violently unstable. Still untrustworthy._

_Still the worst person to find lounging in a chair in front of the computers in the Batcave. Especially when he was laughing like _that_._

_Bruce had gone from shocked to furious in a matter of seconds._

_He hadn't shouted, he'd dragged the Joker out of the chair and broken his nose with the first blow. The Joker had laughed._

"_Hiiiiiiii _Bru_cie........"_

_Bruce had punched him again and he'd just kept laughing-_

"_Whaddayah knoooooow, ha ha, Gotham's faaaaaaaavourite playboy's reeeeeeally just a flying rat........ Oh wait- that's not, heh, _neeeews_ is it?"_

"_**Shut up**__." Bruce had growled._

_The Joker had raised his hands in a gesture of surrender that Bruce didn't trust an inch. So Bruce hit him and he cackled. _

_When it had died down he was still laughing, with at least six broken bones and Bruce's knuckles were bruised and bloody._

_The Joker had sprawled backwards on the floor of the Batcave, giggling. "Soooooo- Bruce Wayne huh?"_

"_Joker-" He'd begun in a threatening tone, but the Joker cut him off with a wavering hand gesture._

"_Jackie."_

"_What?"_

"_Jackie," The Joker repeated, in that tone which implied that everything should be perfectly clear. "My naaame's _Jackie."

000

Gordon was incredibly restrained. He held off while Bruce pulled the wreck over into a secluded car park. He was silent while Wayne helped the hysterical and probably high Joker out of the maserati, and manhandled him up to, what Gordon assumed was one of Wayne's safe houses. He waited while Bruce steered the Joker into a sitting room and persuaded him to calm down and lie on the sofa.

He waited while Wayne locked his pet maniac in.

Then he took a deep breath.

"What the _hell_ were you _thinking_?!" The Commissioner demanded.

Batman- Wayne had the grace to look guilty as sin.

"_How-_**How** long have you been keeping _him_ here?"

"Almost five years."

"_Five years_?!" Gordon repeated incredulously.

Wayne nodded.

Gordon gaped. He glanced towards the ceiling as if for inspiration, searching for a way to word something so obvious it shouldn't need to be verbalised.

"_Why?_"

Bruce sighed. "Because Arkham wasn't working-"

"Oh and this is?!"

If Gordon had still been wavering about Batman's identity, Wayne's glare convinced him.

"Arkham never held him for longer than three months. Their treatment had no effect."

Gordon tried to interrupt but Wayne's voice dropped, took on that dangerous rasping tone.

"We were dealing with a rising body count every time he escaped-"

"So you _decided to kidnap him_?!"

"Actually," Bruce said testily. "I asked him, and he agreed."

"_What?_"

"He thought it would be _funny_." Wayne sighed. "I know it's far from ideal Jim, and yes it was a risk to the public-"

"**Was!!**"

"-but he's under control. He hasn't committed a crime for five years. He hasn't hurt anyone for five years and he _is_ improving-"

"Really?" Gordon muttered sarcastically.

"Five years ago he would have beaten you to a pulp, tortured you and killed you." Wayne stated.

Gordon tried to think calmly, but the Joker was knocked out on the couch in the other room-

_This is not happening. This is too surreal..... even for Gotham, even for Batman, even for _my_ life-_

"What's in the pills?" He asked finally.

Batman sighed. "A cocktail of experimental, borderline illegal and illegal drugs. Some of them are only in there to get him addicted-"

"**Addicted?!**"

Bruce scowled at him. "It made sure he took the damned things-"

"You made the _Joker_ a **drug addict?!**"

"-and it stops him from escaping." He finished defensively.

"_**Jesus**_." Gordon observed.

Wayne stared at a point about an inch above Gordon's head. The Commissioner glared at a spot on Batman's chin. Then, to Jim's surprise, Wayne backed down.

"The attack was targeting Bruce Wayne, not Batman. I don't know what happened to my family but I intend to find them, if you want to arrest us all after that it's your decision Jim."

He started to head down the hall, paused and turned briefly back. "If he wakes up don't let him in the kitchen."

Gordon waited until Wayne was out of sight. Then he swore.

000

_The first time he'd got into the kitchen he'd brewed up a pot of nitro-cellulose out of leftovers and part of a car battery._

_The second time he'd attempted to cook. The smell of burnt fish, candy floss and peppercorns had lingered for almost a week. _

_The third time he'd tried to concoct explosives, noxious gases and lunch at the same time and had managed to coat the ceiling and most of the wall with a very flammable form of raspberry jam._

_And after the fourth time _Alfred_ had threatened him with a rolling pin and a large lemon, with which he promised to do highly improbable and painful things, should Jackie __**ever**__ step into _his_ kitchen again-_

000

"We're going back to the Manor." Bruce told Gordon when he came back, a rucksack full of supplies slung across one shoulder. "Do you have any idea how he found me?"

"Not a clue." Gordon admitted.

Wayne grunted and unlocked the sitting room to reveal several surprising things. The first was that the Joker was still there. Gordon also couldn't help but notice that the room was still intact, nothing had been spray painted an obnoxious colour and nothing was on fire. The Joker was sprawled on the couch, legs dangling off at odd angles. He looked as though he was asleep.

Gordon, as a sensible man and a long-time copper, didn't believe it.

"Jackie."

The Joker groaned. "I'm asleep!"

"Get up."

"I don't _waaanna_ go to _school-"_

"Get up."

"But I'm _tiiiiiired_." The Joker whined.

"Because you overdosed, in the back of my goddamned car." Wayne observed with absolutely no sympathy.

The Joker moaned melodramatically and twisted into a sitting position.

"How did you track me down?" Wayne demanded

The clown ground his knuckles into his eyelids. "Yah know Bats you _reeeeeeeally_ need to-uh work on your _manners_-"

"**How?"**

"-beeeee-cos that nas-tee ol' Bat-voice of yours can't work on _eeeeveryone._" He trailed off giggling, Gordon noticed his hands were shaking-

Bruce glared at him. "You broke my computer again didn't you?"

"_Noooo_." The Joker said testily. "I followed the _Porsche_."

"_Jackie-_"

"I _did_." He protested. "You're _lucky_ you had that GPS put in it or _no one_ would have come to your _res-cue......._ al-thoooooough, if you're going to be this........._ungrateful_ I might not _bother_ next time."

"They _stole_ my Porsche?!"

"Weeeeeeell if you leave these things _lying around_ Batsy-"

Gordon saw Wayne's hands twitch half-way into fists. He counted five deep breaths. Then Wayne dug into his rucksack, produced a battered fedora and a make up set.

"Make yourself look normal." Bruce ordered, dropping the collection in the Joker's lap. "We're going to the Manor."

000

_Bruce had known something was wrong; he was quiet. _

_He was never quiet. Bruce had wondered whether the drugs were beginning to seriously alter his personality. He wondered whether that was a _bad_ thing._

_Bruce had let him stay, leaning against the wall in the Batcave. _

_When he had started laughing Bruce had begun to worry; he hadn't heard that laugh before._

"_Yah know Bats...........you're a reeeeeeeally _bad_ influence." The Joker chuckled. _

"_Really?" Bruce had muttered sarcastically._

"_Uh-huh." He had confirmed, arms suddenly flying akimbo. "Seeeeeee! Too long around _you_ and even __**I'm**__ brooding."_

_Bruce hadn't been paying much attention, the Joker was naturally a prima Dona, and Poison Ivy's latest threat was-_

"_What happened to Harley?"_

"_What-"_

"_Harley- Har-leen, what happened to her?"_

_Bruce had turned round and found that Jackie wasn't smiling, so he'd sighed. And told him._

000

Wayne Manor looked deceptively peaceful from the outside. The inside looked very much as though every room had been turned upside down and probably shaken for good measure.

By force of habit Gordon found himself scanning the room in a regular grid. He was slightly surprised to find, when he looked up, that the World's Greatest Detective wasn't doing the same thing. Wayne was glowering at the Joker.

"_Meeeeeee?_" The Joker's green eyes widened into an expression that was probably supposed to be affronted innocence but looked closer to a prolonged twitch. "**I** didn't do _aaaaaalll_ this!"

"Just most of it." Batman surmised.

"Nooooooww, that's not _fair_ Batsy- Batsy!"

Wayne ignored him. He pushed past, heading towards the clock and the Batcave at a pace his companions had difficulty keeping up with.

"You re-paper _oooooone_ study-" The Joker muttered.

000

_Bruce had found himself wishing, not for the first time, he hadn't let the clown out of his sight. But then the Jok- _Jackie's_ response hadn't been.......what he'd expected. _

_Bruce wouldn't have been surprised if he'd laughed, or screamed, or leapt across the room to attack him but-_

_Bruce had sat and watched and waited for him to wake up. _

_He had thought about the names Jackie had murmured. He had wondered who the other two had been, Eve, Jeannie.......... Harleen. _

_The Joker wasn't much of a drinker. _

_Bruce had watched him sweat and moan, in a drunken sleep until he woke up laughing._

_He had spent most of the week remembering, a single song, a quiet quavering tenor-_

"_You aaaaaare my suuuuuunshine, my own-lee suuuuunshine- Yooooou make me haaaaaaaaappeeeeeeeeee-"_

_Bruce had waited for him to stop laughing and sighed._

"_I'm sorry-" He had begun._

_But the Joker had just laughed._

000

The cave was huge, with a high ceiling full of stalactites piled almost on top of each other like the teeth in a shark's jaw. The lighting was kept low because of the bats, aprotected species apparently-

The gadgets were incredible, Gordon wasn't entirely sure what half of them were for but the sheer abundance of technology was astonishing.

_And I know forensics would give an arm and a leg for _that_-_

Bruce- Batman, who had revived the computer and was in the process of running a dozen different samples, tolerating Gordon and ignoring the Joker, gave a piece of his state of the art equipment a hefty kick.

_Well- an arm at least._

Neither of them were particularly good company.

The Joker hummed and giggled. He perched on machinery until Batman stomped towards it then he'd clamber off quickly. His laughter took on a nervous edge.

Wayne immersed himself in his equipment, his evidence, his crime.

And since it was Wayne who created the oppressive, threatening mood it was only natural that he would break the silence.

"Penguin organised this."

"How?" Gordon asked.

"_Why_?" The Joker wondered.

"A group of his men were released a month ago; they've been visiting him steadily for the last two weeks-"

"But _Batsy-_"

"-he has the most contacts on the outside-"

"_Bats?"_

"-the ability to bury the entire fortune in paper work and judging by the number of accounts that were frozen after his latest trial, he has motive-"

"Bruuuuuuucey?"

"**Don't** call me that."

The Joker, once he was sure he was the centre of attention again, grinned. "Why?"

"Why-" Wayne began. "Because he wants my money."

The Joker considered this. "_Why?_"

Wayne sighed. "Jackie?"

"Yes pumpkin pie?"

"Shut up."

000

_They had all been in the Batcave all thr-four of them. It had taken most of last night to isolate the chemically active agent from Isley's spores, Dick had done the majority of the leg-work because Alfred __**insisted**__ that Bruce was not moving for at least a three hours- _

_The Joker had perched himself on an infra red spectrometer and watched the activity with considerable amusement. _

_He was an annoyance, a distraction- _

_Then he'd started tormenting Robin. They'd suffered it for twenty minutes before Bruce had snapped and shouted both of them down. The Joker had gone quiet._

_They'd gone back to the chemicals. _

_Alfred had noticed, but it had taken more than half an hour._

"_Master Bruce, he's-"_

_The Joker had vanished. So had one of their samples._

_It was possibly one of the fastest ways to throw the entire Wayne household into disarray. Robin had taken to the streets. Alfred had been on the point of ransacking the Manor. _

_Eventually they'd found him, holed up in Bruce's study where he'd managed to cover most of the walls with note paper, lilac scrawl and blu tack. There were days when Bruce felt quite strongly that it was not worth asking for an explanation._

_Bruce had sighed, stepped into the study and asked anyway._

"_**What**__ are you doing?"_

_The Joker had laughed. "Say-ving __**Gotham**__ Bats daaaaaaaarling."_

_Bruce had taken a moment to run that comment through his head twice. "What?"_

_It was a mark of how well the newest drugs were working, or perhaps just another of the Joker's moods, but Jackie had stood there and _explained_ that this wasn't just another new alkaloid but a highly complex array of proteins and Batman was looking at it all _**wrong**_ trying to find some sort of _vaccination_ when really all you needed to do was take a good look at the structure, find what was holding it together, identify significant intra-molecular interactions and find a way to disrupt them because honestly waiting until it was _in vivo_ before trying to take it apart? _That_ was __**crazy**__._

_Bruce had been lost for words. _

_Jackie, who never was, had grinned. "You seeeeeee? I'm __**not**_just_ a pretty face."_

000

When Wayne started gathering equipment together in a purposeful fashion Gordon began to worry. He had a strong suspicion that he was going to be left with the Joker again.

_How does everything turn so crazy so quickly? Is it just Gotham? It was never this nuts back in Chicago-_

His suspicions were confirmed when Wayne vanished into an alcove only to reappear in a cape and cowl.

"Hey! Wait just a minit-"

"Stay here." Wayne- Batman ordered, typing instructions into the computer. "I'll be back in two hours. Don't let him touch anything."

"But-" Gordon began.

Batman ignored him and turned his full attention to the grinning maniac who had deposited himself on the Batmobile as soon as Wayne had gone to get changed. The Joker giggled. Batman cut him off before he started-

"**No** you **can't** come. You're a wanted criminal, a violent psychotic and you look like a clown. Get off my car."

The Joker pouted. "But _Baaaaaaatsy-_"

There was a short scuffled which began with Batman grabbing the Joker by the scruff of the neck and ended with the Joker travelling away from the Batmobile at speed, not entirely under his own power. He landed in a chuckling heap a few feet away from Gordon.

The police Commissioner of Gotham City glared down at the Joker. He was not as good at it as Batman.

The Batmobile's engine flared up, loud enough to send the bats into swirling flocks.

And they were alone.

-000-


	3. Chapter 3

Twenty minutes had rarely dragged by so slowly. But sitting down in the dark, because the Manor upstairs _was_ as wrecked as it looked, listening to the Joker laugh was enough to try anyone's nerves.

And there was a reason why Gordon had made damn sure he didn't know Batman's identity-

_This is madness_-

He didn't _want_ to know the details; his city needed Batman even now. True, things had improved over the years; you could _probably_ trust almost half the cops not to be on the take now, the mob's operations had shrunk considerably, it was harder to get hold of illegal drugs then it had been for decades, but with more dangerous madmen and terrorists per head than anywhere else in the country, a consistent lack of state funding and a 'secure' facility that was at best a joke-

Gotham needed Batman.

Batman was breaking the law.

Gordon toyed briefly with the idea of stepping down, but what would that accomplish? The word _accomplice_ just kept cropping up from the back of his mind and-

"Hold it right there!" The words were as instinctive as reaching for his gun; which wasn't there.

The Joker chuckled. "Brucey doesn't _liiiiiiike_ guns, Kuh-mmishon-eeeeerrrrrrrr.........."

"Stay back!" Gordon ordered with far more confidence then he felt.

"Awwwwww Jimbo you're not _still_ mad about that leeettle........._ab_-duc-shon are you?"

Laughing, the Joker advanced.

000

"_You're going to give yourself cancer." _

_He'd laughed and blown a smoke ring, because reeeeeeally, _cancer?_ Those warnings on the pack _weren't_ for decoration?_

_Of course Brucey hadn't been amused, and it wasn't about the smoking, not reeeeeeeeally. It was __**about**__ the drugs, any __**idiot**__ could have seen that-_

_What? Did Bats think he hadn't, heh heh, __**noticed**__ that he kept chucking his guts up and his hair was starting to fall out, which reeeeeally __**couldn't**__ be natural because they __**both**__ knew he was tougher than that. It didn't take __**Eddie**__ to figure there was some sort of-uh key-moh-therapy agent in there and hey it didn't take a __**doc-torate**__ to know they usually __**caused**__ tumours and if Batsy even __**thought**__ the words brain-surgery-_

_No? Well it probably __**would**__ be hard to explain-_

_And hey, you never know, a couple of __**strokes**__ might actually make it __**better**__-_

_Bruce hadn't got that one either; he'd sighed, and left Jackie to smoke out his house._

000

Gordon had spent far too much time in the last twenty four hours wearing handcuffs. He could tell because his wrists felt as though they'd been crushed by a truck.

He sat, staring at the computer. He didn't bother to tug against the restraints or search his pockets for keys this time.

He sat, stared and tried not to work himself up into a fury over the fact the crazy son of a bitch had got the drop on him three times in one day.

Sooner or later Wayne would be back. They'd catch the Joker, one way or another, hopefully before the body count climbed _too_ high-

This whole sorry little experiment would end with the Joker back in Arkham where he belonged and Batman........

Well.

Gordon hadn't decided what to do about Wayne yet-

000

_The room was filling with smoke. Behind him, on the floor below, in the corners he couldn't see, he could hear screams and gunshots. And laughter._

_It was terrifying. _

_He could probably untie himself, if he was calm, but he could feel his heart racing to keep up with the adrenaline and the smoke was getting into his lungs and he __**shouldn't**__ escape, not without a good reason for how Dick Grayson, __**perfectly**__ normal ward of Bruce Wayne, could have-_

_Then again fire was a good reason-_

_Until a bullet meant for someone else clipped you in the smoke while you were trying to find the stairs._

_The laughter was getting closer-_

_He was suddenly sure the Joker was going to kill him; they'd always hated each other and now-_

_But Batman would-_

_But the Joker could always make it look like an accident-_

_Grayson struggled against the chair he was tied to, but the air burnt and stung, he couldn't breathe and he couldn't calm down and the laughter was getting closer._

_He jerked and the chair tipped over with a clatter that set one of his kidnappers firing into the smog. The gunshots stopped suddenly, but whether it was because he ran out of bullets or he ran into a clown was impossible to tell. _

_How did he even get out? Bruce would never let him-_

_Unless they had Bruce too. _

_The laughter stopped and with it gone Grayson couldn't help but notice that there was no gunfire, and no screaming. _

_Someone, he had a good idea who gave the back of the chair a rough kick. _

"_Amateur." _

"_What the hell are you doing clown?" Grayson tried to shout and attempted to make his voice sound harsh and commanding the way Bruce did. _

_He did not precisely succeed._

_The chair lurched upright, leaving his stomach on the floor, and rocked precariously on two legs before righting itself. The Joker was twirling a switch blade in his hand, toying with it the way an artist might play with a pencil._

"_I'm not __**in-teeeeerr-rupting**__ anything am I? Beeeeee-cause if you're........busy, aaall- heh heh, tied up with your __**friends**__ I could come back in a couple of hours?"_

_By which time the building would have burnt to the ground and he'd have died of smoke inhalation._

_Grayson glared at him._

"_Awwwwww diddums, did Batsy teach you that one? You haven't got it right you know.......you need to look __**meaner**__. You just look like you need some Rennies-"_

"_Are you going to help me?"_

_The Joker sniffed. "I haven't de-cided yet." _

_The switch blade span in his fingers, but he wasn't smiling which was probably a good sign, it probably meant he'd taken his meds and-_

_The knife came down too fast for him to flinch with enough force behind it to sheer the half dozen layers of duc tape round his wrist. Grayson slowly pulled his hand free. The Joker had managed to carve a two inch slice of skin loose with the tape. He wiped the blood off on his trousers and levered the knife out of the arm rest._

"_Were you thinking about Bruce?" Grayson asked as he sawed himself free._

"_Oh noooooooooo-" The Joker declared, laughing now that he was running more or less on instinct again. "I thought of the _cleaning bill_."_

000

It was raining heavily over Gotham; the clouds turned the dripping alleyways into set scenes from every story ever written about a Chicago private detective. In one such alley there was a car and a pay phone.

In the car a man in a soaked fedora was laughing at the rain. Make up dripped off his face in thin streams, as though the water was stripping his skin away.

Huddled in the pay phone a teenager, coughed, spluttered and wiped the cut on his arm over his jeans as he dug in his pockets for change. Eventually he found enough to make the call-

He seemed nervous, more so then most young men stranded in a strange part of the city in the middle of the night. He kept glancing back to the car and the man in the fedora.

Then someone answered the phone.

"Yes I'm fine-"

"Yes he's here-"

"Yes I'm sure-"

"No Bruce it just ran out of gas-"

"No we're- What? Oh. Somewhere near the Narrows I think-"

"Yes I _know_ it's not the right way to the Manor but he wouldn't listen-"

"Well I didn't exactly _let_ him, he had the keys and when I tried to take them he-"

"No Bruce."

"Well it wasn't as though I-"

"Yes Bruce."

"No I couldn't, it's a sports car it doesn't _have_ a back seat-"

"No I don't know how he found the keys-"

"Bruce it's _Jackie_ we're talking about of _course_ it's wrecked-"

"Well you could tell them I did it."

"I don't know, isn't that what heirs to massive fortunes are supposed to do? Look I-"

"Yes Bruce."

"No Bruce."

"I know Bruce. Listen is Alfred-"

"Uh huh."

"Well that's good-"

"He did _what_?!"

"And Gordon hasn't arrested you yet?"

"Wow........ So does that mean-"

"Uh huh. You haven't told him what he did to-"

"No Bruce."

"Yes I know that Bruce-"

"Listen ummm could you pick us up?"

000

_It took more than a week for Gordon to find an excuse to visit Wayne Manor alone. _

_The Butler, so poised no one could have guessed he'd been caught in a hostage situation a few days before, showed him through. _

_In a small office a pale man in a navy suit was dealing out cards-_

_If you took away the background; stripped the wood from the walls, the carpet from the floor, bolted the furniture down, swapped the suit for an orange uniform, it would be just like the old days. Gordon sat opposite him instinctively. A hand of cards appeared in front of him. Just like Arkham. _

_He was silent. That was how it always started. He'd let the officer in front of him talk while his smile grew wider and more dangerous. Gordon wasn't sure what exactly it was that finally raised a response from the Joker- _

_He laughed, waggled a long finger at Gordon. "First you were _confusing_ sanity with-uh........__**normality**__. Noooooooow, you're confusing sanity with __**morality**__."_

_Gordon started to speak, but the Joker continued in that high pitched conversational tone._

"_Seeeeee in-sanity is a __**legal**__ term- it means.......uh- 'Not reeeeee-sponsible for criminal con-duct, as a re-sult of sev-eeeeere mental __**disease**__ or de-fect, and unable to appreciate the nay-ture, __**quality**__ or wrrrrrrongfulness of........whatever'. It __**means **__you're- uh..... not just out of touch with __**reality **__you, heh heh, wouldn't know it if it __**hit**__ you........ It's not __**about **__right and wrong.......it's about __**perspective-**__"_

_He paused produced a cigarette from his blazer pocket and lit up. "Yoooooou want me to tell you that I'm __**better**__...........not dain-ger-ous anymore......."_

You'd be lying_-_

"_And you don't trust Batsy anymoooooore............ So that just leeeeeeaves __**me**__. You want to know why I.......stay here hmmmmm?"_

_The Joker took a long drag, tilted his head back until he was staring at the ceiling and blew out a line of smoke. _

"_It's about......peeers-pec-tive........ I don't care much for __**reality**__ you see........ Do you _sleep_ much Kuh-mish? I _didn't_.......not reeeeeeally sure how I'-uh do all that stuff......turns out I _like_ being able to stop- sometimes........... And-uh the __**hallucinations**__ arn't as......real anymore."_

_He chuckled. "You know Jimbo, if you put me in the dock __**now**__ they _might_ actually say I'm __**sane**__."_

000

Of course once the word got out it spread quickly.

Bruce was still caught in the aftermath of almost euphoric relief because the Joker had not gone on a rampage, had actually refrained from killing _anyone_ and it looked as though Gordon had decided to keep his secret at least for now-

He still thought Gotham needed Batman, and may be now that he knew Bruce would be able to keep him in the loop-

Coupled with the current low crime rate, Arkham's gradually improving security and Jackie's slow progress, things were looking surprisingly good for a week that had started with a kidnapping.

Then of course the Big Blue Boy Scout showed up with that laughable expression of outrage plastered over his face.

Bruce didn't pay much attention to what he said. It seemed to be the usual pseudo-ethical offal he touted out when he didn't understand Batman's reasoning.

Alfred served them tea in the parlour. Dick stuck his head round the door briefly, then smartly vanished. And then Jackie showed up.

Their 'conversation' ground to a halt as he sauntered in, coming right up to the table and planting a quick kiss on Bruce's cheek. Bruce kicked him in the shins, but his smile never faltered, and _Clark_ apparently didn't notice because that look of shock clearly suggested his mind had gone to _entirely_ different places.

The Joker chuckled and deposited himself on the arm of a settee. He smiled, kicked his feet like an over excited child but stayed silent. He didn't seem to be in a talkative mood.

Eventually Kent recovered his nerve enough to continue and Bruce went back to 'listening' stoney faced, whilst mulling over crime scene details from ten different cases.

Occasionally the Joker laughed, and it worried Bruce because it was the laugh that said he knew something they didn't.

He waited until Kent got up to go before telling them what it was.

"Soooooo it's true then? Yoou _aaaare_ immune to most _poisons_?"

Alfred managed to herd a stupefied Superman out before the situation exploded. Bruce sighed.

"_Joker-_"

"Awwwwww Bats, **sweetheart** _come on_! He doesn't count!" The clown protested.

"_Jackie-"_

"Al-right, al-right....... But do me a fay-vour- hows about we take the _lecture_ as read this time, you just-uh _choke_ me or break my legs and we'll call it _even_, hmmmmmmmm?"

But when Bruce turned around he was smiling. "You poisoned Superman?"

The Joker shrugged, as if to say that he could not possibly be expected to let a chance like that slip him by.

And Bruce _laughed_. "Just for that, I'm keeping you."

-000-


End file.
